Lifetime Movie of the Week

Wow. I haven’t been this offended in quite some time…

Unbelievable…Lifetime movie of the week, aka “Burning Bed” pulls up into my cube and starts lecturing me about How EVERYBODY hates Texas.
As a native Texan I take offense. Granted, in my adult life, I’ve moved, and traveled around the globe and then moved back to Texas. I enjoy being a Texan. Until we got that numb nuts as President, people from all over the world would appreciate our eccentricities. Being a Texan stood for integrity and pride, and southern hospitality and knowing your neighbors, and playing outside until it was dark. Now it may not be the same place it was when I was a little boy, but don’t get up into my personal space and start trash-talking Texas. Especially if you’re not really a New Yorker anyway, you’re from South Carolina. Jealousy isn’t a color that suits you honey. She even rips on Austin, and says how much she thinks it sucks.
Then as if it ain’t enough to kick me where I sleep, she goes on to pontificate about Prop 2…A VERY sore subject with me…So tread lightly ‘cause I’ll mail your face to France to have it glued onto somebody else’s grill. For all of you who don’t know, Prop 2 is a bill that restricts same sex couples from getting married in the state of Texas.

“I overheard these two people in the grocery store talking about Prop 2. You know, there was absolutely no way Proposition 2 was not going to pass. I just wanted to pull those two people aside and tell them that there just wasn’t any way. I just felt so sorry for them. They actually believed they had a chance.”

She took this patronizing tone that begged for the tongue lashing of a lifetime.

We all have our own little hot buttons, these little clicks in our heads that go off when someone has taken you just one step too far and you’re gonna flip out and go Julia Sugarbaker on their sad self. You have absolutely no control over the carnage. The Incredible Hulk ain’t got nuthin on me. If this were a movie L7’s “Sh*t List” would be playing in the background.

I’m biting my tongue so hard I’m tasting blood. Breathe deeply JP. Now speak:
“But you do realize how important it is that people have this dialogue, right? You do realize how necessary it is that people like you, don’t open there mouths and discourage them from trying right?”

“It doesn’t change the fact that this is Texas. And it’s never going to change here.” She has this sort of Stevie Nick’s airy lilt to her voice that makes you want to serve her a beaker full of drano and tell her to gargle. Instead I come back with:
“My recommendation is that gay people all over the state should stop paying their school taxes. Gay people have no say in the curriculum and the state is clearly conspiring to keep these people from adopting any children of their own, so they shouldn’t feel obligated to pay those taxes. To put it into terms that the government can understand, fiscally cut them off. Yes it’s illegal, but it’s civil disobedience.”

She wasn’t even listening to me at this point. I could tell that she was merely thinking of the next clever thing she was going to say. I was looking for the trap door that maintenance was supposed to install. I put in request for it weeks ago. My eyes were quickly darting around my cube for the button…Button button…where’s the button? Crap! Still no trap door.

I told her I needed to go and…uh…do something and left. Good Lord, are you kidding me with this crap? No matter where you go, people are generally the same all over. At the core, and there are a few exceptions, there are no evil people, there’s just a lot of stupid people who don’t understand, or have been given bad information stemming from fear. Sure, Burning Bed may feel like the people in Texas are horrid people, but then I’m wondering if she knew this beforehand, did she move here to be with her own kind?